Post by MrFlibble on Jul 8, 2014 21:30:37 GMT
The first demo of Tyrian 2000 (which is essentially the same shareware episode) was released sometime in October 1999, and it lists XSIV Games/Stealth Productions as the publisher and Eclipse as the developer. This demo version is widely available today and can be found, for example, here.
However, it appears that there was yet another, newer demo version. Recently I found a file called Tyrian 2000 Demo.zip which was preserved by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine as a part of the old World Tree Games' website. The date stamps on the installer files are from November 8, 2000 - more than a year later than the first demo.
Surprisingly, it turned out that the demo came with an incomplete set of files, and would not run on its own. Adding the missing files from the previous version did the trick, however the Ecipse logo at startup used wrong colours. After a small investigation it was determined that the reason behind this was the change of the developer logo. Indeed, in September 2000 Eclipse announced at their website that the company name was changed to World Tree Games.
Litude, a fellow Tyrian enthusiast, came up with the idea to take an updated TYRIAN.PIC from the Sound Blaster Live! patch. Another surprise was that both T2K_SBL_DEMO and T2K_SBL_FULL have TYRIAN.PIC from the French version of the game for some reason, even though these patches were intended for the English version of the game. As the result, the demo will show the correct World Tree Games logo at startup, but the in-game interface will be in French:
As it turns out, World Tree Games have recognized their mistake with the incomplete demo version. The demo was first announced at the developer's website (Wayback Machine copy) on November 8, 2000:
This was followed by another statement just a few days later:
However, the updated demo was not archived at the link above by the Wayback Machine. Perhaps a copy of it can be found elsewhere.
I did a bit of Googling in order to find the updated demo, but no results as of yet. What I did find though were these tools, so I just used tyrunpak.exe to extract the English language interface images from an older version and replace the French ones in the new TYRIAN.PIC. The fixed TYRIAN.PIC to be used with the updated demo can be downloaded here.
The date stamp on the game executable from the new demo is set to November 6, 2000. To the best of my knowledge, this is the newest official DOS release of the game (apart from the Sound Blaster Live! version). Because the executable works with the full version too, Litude made a small unofficial patch that will update both the retail and the freeware version of the game. This patch is available here (it does not include the fixed TYRIAN.PIC yet though).
However, it appears that there was yet another, newer demo version. Recently I found a file called Tyrian 2000 Demo.zip which was preserved by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine as a part of the old World Tree Games' website. The date stamps on the installer files are from November 8, 2000 - more than a year later than the first demo.
Surprisingly, it turned out that the demo came with an incomplete set of files, and would not run on its own. Adding the missing files from the previous version did the trick, however the Ecipse logo at startup used wrong colours. After a small investigation it was determined that the reason behind this was the change of the developer logo. Indeed, in September 2000 Eclipse announced at their website that the company name was changed to World Tree Games.
Litude, a fellow Tyrian enthusiast, came up with the idea to take an updated TYRIAN.PIC from the Sound Blaster Live! patch. Another surprise was that both T2K_SBL_DEMO and T2K_SBL_FULL have TYRIAN.PIC from the French version of the game for some reason, even though these patches were intended for the English version of the game. As the result, the demo will show the correct World Tree Games logo at startup, but the in-game interface will be in French:
As it turns out, World Tree Games have recognized their mistake with the incomplete demo version. The demo was first announced at the developer's website (Wayback Machine copy) on November 8, 2000:
::11 - 08 - 00 :: 13:14 :: Tyrian 2000 Download
Since Symmetry's site is down for a while, I'm adding the Tyrian 2000 demo as a download. Just click here. For those who don't know, Tyrian is a PC vertical scrolling shooter that you might as well try out because it's a lot of fun. The demo is quite long and full-featured!
Since Symmetry's site is down for a while, I'm adding the Tyrian 2000 demo as a download. Just click here. For those who don't know, Tyrian is a PC vertical scrolling shooter that you might as well try out because it's a lot of fun. The demo is quite long and full-featured!
This was followed by another statement just a few days later:
::11 - 17 - 00 :: 1:40 :: Tyrian Demo Updated
An incomplete version of the Tyrian demo was uploaded. To download the right version click here. For those who don't know, Tyrian is a PC vertical scrolling shooter that you might as well try out because it's a lot of fun. The demo is quite long and full-featured!
An incomplete version of the Tyrian demo was uploaded. To download the right version click here. For those who don't know, Tyrian is a PC vertical scrolling shooter that you might as well try out because it's a lot of fun. The demo is quite long and full-featured!
However, the updated demo was not archived at the link above by the Wayback Machine. Perhaps a copy of it can be found elsewhere.
I did a bit of Googling in order to find the updated demo, but no results as of yet. What I did find though were these tools, so I just used tyrunpak.exe to extract the English language interface images from an older version and replace the French ones in the new TYRIAN.PIC. The fixed TYRIAN.PIC to be used with the updated demo can be downloaded here.
The date stamp on the game executable from the new demo is set to November 6, 2000. To the best of my knowledge, this is the newest official DOS release of the game (apart from the Sound Blaster Live! version). Because the executable works with the full version too, Litude made a small unofficial patch that will update both the retail and the freeware version of the game. This patch is available here (it does not include the fixed TYRIAN.PIC yet though).
